H.S. softball: Woodstown's wins continue to get bigger in a dream season
BUENA – Who could blame the Woodstown Wolverines for being wound up after this win?
For the squad that captured the high school softball program’s first conference title in 43 years, the team considered Friday’s 4-2 victory over perennial power Buena in the quarterfinal round of the South Jersey Group 1 tournament as an even bigger accomplishment.
“At this point, it is bigger,” Woodstown first-year head coach Dave Wildermuth said. “We’re going to the final four and don’t count us out there either. Nobody’s given us a shot this year and we’re proving a lot of people wrong.
“I’m enjoying this ride too much, don’t wake me up.”
Sophomore pitcher Olivia Boultinghouse added, “It definitely is bigger because we’ve moving on and we’re going to get a chance to maybe play in the championship and win that too.”
Wildermuth turned the softball over to Boultinghouse after senior Rebecca Harris tossed a victory in the tournament opener against Pitman on Tuesday.
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While Boultinghouse wasn’t going to overpower a bruising Buena offense, the right-hander was the perfect choice to keep the home team off-balanced.
“Liv throws strikes,” Wildermuth said. “Rebecca is a good pitcher as well, but we felt the matchup would favor Liv in this one.”
Boultinghouse only struck out three, but didn’t issue a walk. For the season, she has only handed out eight free passes in 48 2/3 innings.
The right-hander relied on a steady defense that shined, especially shortstop Tulana Mingin who turned several hard hit grounders into routine plays.
Boultinghouse said she learned about the starting assignment earlier in the week. The extra time to think about the start ramped up the nerves, but those subsided once the first pitch was thrown.
“I was fine after that first pitch, I’ve been doing this for a long time and I knew I was OK from that point on,” she said.
Boultinghouse kept Buena’s boppers in check as the Chiefs No. 3 and No. 4 hitters – Kendal Bryant and Emily D’Ottavio - went a combined 0-for-6. Before Friday, those two hitters went hitless a combined three times in 25 games.
Boultinghouse, who has won her last four starts, took three-hitter into the seventh when she ran into her only trouble of the game. Buena started the frame with three straight hits and had another knock with two outs, before Boultinghouse induced a groundballl for the final out.
“That inning was very stressful,” she said. “I thought it was going to go downhill, but we picked ourselves up and made the plays.”
Just like the Wolverines have done all spring.
Hot bat
When senior Grace Clark went down with an injury in late April, sophomore Cara Delia got the call and is making the most of the opportunity.
Delia is batting .381 with three multi-hit games and eight RBIs. Against Buena, the sophomore roped a run-scoring triple, sending the ball to the deepest part of the ballpark off the fence just below the 246-foot sign. She added a single and scored a run in the sixth.
“She’s been on absolute fire since she’s gotten the chance,” Wildermuth said.
Clark, who tore some ligaments in her ankle, is expected to make a full recovery and play softball at Division III Neumann next season.
What it means
Fifth-seeded Woodstown (14-4) will await Saturday’s winner between top-seeded Audubon and eighth-seeded Schalick. The semifinal will be played on Tuesday.
Last week, the Wolverines completed a season sweep over Schalick to lock up the Tri-County Conference Diamond Division title - the program's first since 1979.
Buena (17-9) was bounced from the tournament in the quarterfinal round for the first time since 2016. The squad has one Cape-Atlantic League game left at Lower Cape May next week.
Big plays
Harris came off the bench and delivered a clutch two-out RBI single in the sixth, extending Woodstown’s lead to 4-1.
Buena’s Kendal Bryant is known for her bat, but she had one of her best defensive games of her career. The third baseman recorded nine assists, none bigger than the one she notched in the fourth inning. With a runner on third, Bryant fielded a hard grounder and faked a throw to first, catching the lead runner coming down the line too far and threw her out trying to go back to the bag.
"She brought her glove (Friday), she had a fabulous game defensively," Buena head coach Pam Pickett said. "We kept telling her that she was going to be vital because we thought they were going to bunt more."
Tom McGurk is a regional sports reporter for the Courier-Post, The Daily Journal and Burlington County Times, covering South Jersey sports for over 30 years. If you have a sports story that needs to be told, contact him at (856) 486-2420 or email tmcgurk@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @McGurkSports. Help support local journalism with a digital subscription.
This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: H.S. softball: Woodstown's wins continue to get bigger in a dream season
